I bought this book for my mother for Christmas when this book was still new. I scoured the bookstore for something she might like. I even asked one of the overworked staff for advice. He recommended Tatum O’Neil’s autobiography, on the merit that it was too awful for words. I kept looking.

I should probably add that I’d already bought my mother a book for Christmas, which I had to return because my stepfather decided to buy her the same book. He had also decided that he was going to be the one to give her said book and I was going to be the one roaming the aisles of a crowded bookstore a week before the big day.

So after the O’Neil lover abandoned me for another customer, I was in the new release section, borderline catatonic. And suddenly, Julie and Julia caught my eye. Mostly it was the cover. Green is a very soothing color, and I could relate to the whisk collapsed on it’s side.

The premise seemed very cool: A woman cooks her way through Julia Child in a tiny kitchen during her thirtieth year. Sounded good. I bought it, wrapped it, and gave it to my mother, whose only comment upon reading it was, “She seems a little self-involved.”

I completely forgot about the book until I was sitting in a movie theater and all of a sudden, Amy Adams and Meryl Streep popped up. A movie! From a book! From a blog! (Is it just me, or shouldn’t Meryl Streep exist in a world where blogs don’t exist?)

So I figured I’d finally read the book. And…eh.

I just kept waiting for the revelation. Why adapt a blog into a memoir, anyway? Isn’t that redundant? Why not a novel? At least that would let her fictionalize and put in some kind of theme or at least an ending.

And yes, like my mother, I found it terribly self-involved.

Watching Hotel Babylon is like watching a big, glossy British magazine.

“You could spend the rest of your life studying 1939. It’s all there.”

This is truly one of my favorite movies. The story of a princess who gets to cut loose in Rome for a day, it also marked the starring debut of Hollywood royalty: Audrey Hepburn.

The romance with Gregory Peck is so sweet, Audrey is fresh-faced and feminine, and 1950’s Rome is breathtaking.

It’s so easy to see why she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for this.

The last episode of the season, John Smith, which aims to tell the story of one life by examining seven different men named John Smith at different points in their lives, moved me to tears.

It covered the big life experiences that we all go through. Love, death, life’s work. It was so moving to see how seven people had so much in common, not only with each other, but with me, too.

I’m so glad that Conan has managed to take his weird edge with him to his earlier time slot.

While I enjoyed this movie, it has to be said that it contains one of the worst sex scenes of the decade.

While I disagreed with Bush’s politics when he was in office, I never really understood full-on Bush hatred. It seemed at best a tacky trend, and at worst, a complete waste of energy. It seems strange to me that one person could be a lightning rod for the beliefs and decisions of so many people. Especially the same person who had an 80% approval rating in 2002.

Sometimes I wonder if he would have been received differently had he been from another state. It never fails to intrigue me how much Texas is a part of Bush’s legacy. There is a lot of Texas mythology in the film, from football to belt buckles to the soundtrack.

The movie has an excellent cast, which is a shame, because I thought most of the performances were rather stilted, Josh Brolin’s and Elizabeth Banks’ being notable exceptions. Richard Dreyfuss did an pretty good job as Cheney.

Overall, the movie is definitely worth consuming. I think it’s particularly interesting that it was independently financed. I just wish Stone had included Bush’s full eight years in the movie, or perhaps waited a few years to get a little more perspective. Then again, I’m sure some filmmaker will pick up where Stone left off eventually.

If it isn’t enough that this movie is hilarious from the start to the finish—two hours of laughs, I kid you not—it also has some serious cinematic style to it. The opening credits could almost be a photography exhibit about Vegas. There’s also a hilarious visual nod to Rain Man toward the end.

I love this movie! It seemed to get better as it went along. I loved all the shots of 1960’s Paris and Cleo’s last two encounters, one with her friend who models for an art class, and one with a soldier on leave.